Intel Pentium G3220 Processor Review

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is a 2012 open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios and published by Square Enix. The game was released on August 14, 2012, for Microsoft Windows. The game uses the Havok physics engine.

Benchmark Results:The GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH averaged 68.3 frames per second at 1280×1024 and 44.7 frames per second at 1920×1080 in Sleeping Dogs.

Would you say the G3220 could run CS: GO without too many problems? I’ve got a Nvidia Quadro FX1800 to go along with it, not too great I know but sadly I haven’t got the cash to get a good system. Hope you can help me out!

Jake

I run CS:GO with a g3220 and a R7 265 and I get upto 200 fps in competitive mode. Usually won’t go lower then 120 in busy situations. So it’s definitely playable. In busy dedicated DM servers the fps starts to feel choppy going sub 90 at times. So it’s not at the level of an i5 or anything, but definitely not bad. I’d be more worried about the Quadro FX1800, don’t know how that will fare in a relatively modern game with its slow 768mb RAM. If I were you I’d wait until you get some more money and upgrade the whole thing instead of just the CPU. Hope this helped.

Act Arus

Alright, thanks for the reply! Can you recommend a graphics card that could do the job without getting too expensive? I have about €60-80 ($75-87) in mind as my budget, the R7 costs quite a bit more and is therefore, sadly, not very suitable for my situation. I’m not sure if there even are cards out there that will do the trick for that amount of money… Anyway, thanks for helping me out!

Jake

At that price range you are mostly limited to GPUs with GDDR3 RAM not really suitable for gaming. Your best bet is to look at second hand GPUs. You can probably find a HD7850 or something equivalent in that price range. Good luck in finding something nice!

JHG

Duh another test aiming to compare CPUs and throws in a discrete graphics card. Of course the results are all within 3% of each other, the CPU is barely an issue in gaming, the GPU does by far most of the work. Where can we see a comparison of integrated graphics performance???

which motherboarrd did you us i am using GIGABYTE GA-H81M-DS2 and i cant seem to find the clock frequency

Digiadam

What about temps?

Joe H

I’ve had this CPU for months, and for a HTPC/family gaming rig it is the best you can get for the price. I use an AMD 7850 1GB OC with the G3220, and I have yet to find any games unplayable due to this CPU. The only issue I run into is the bottlenecking related to VRAM of the 7850, but that’s only in modded Skyrim w/ENB and Anti-aliasing can be turned down in everything else.

If you are looking to build a cheap entry-level gaming rig, save the money on the G3220 for now and put your savings into a higher end GPU and even a better MOBO. When you move up to a more powerful CPU and faster RAM you will be all set for HD gaming glory.

I highly recommend this processor to anybody looking to pinch some pennies or to build a solid HTPC/family gaming computer.

Anon51

The RAM clock is really not important for CPU case unless you are using integrated graphics. Even the 1600MHz is only achievable via XMP. And RAM clocks is never affected by the CPU multiplier but only the base clock. It is generally non-beneficial to invest in RAM with higher clock speeds as it is expensive and does not provide any significant boost in the system with discreet graphics card. For me an XMP 1600MHz clocked HyperX and equivalent is enough to play games.
Aside frame rates, most of gamers concern is the loading time for games. Thus for non-overclockers (which is not me) it is best to spend extra bucks for a decent GPU and a 120GB SSD instead of spending an extra $300 for an intel i7-4770K when you didn’t even benefit much from the extra powerhouse in games.
For those opting for a high end GPU I really do recommend an intel i3-4150 with a Samsung 840EVO SSD which will give full satisfaction when every penny counts.

Anon51

Am looking toward to build my cousin’s PC using this CPU. Did a lookup and compared with the newly launched G3240 and G2030 from the ivy bridge. Since the ivy bridge motherboards are quickly getting out of phase in Malaysia I did consider this one compared to the G3240 since it is cheaper and will give a visibly similar performance in games with decent graphics card.
Mid-range graphics card (HD7770,HD7790,R7 260X, R7 265 HD6850,HD6870,GTX650Ti,GTX750,GTX 750Ti,GTX650) will give a very similar performance when paired with this processor even comparing with the i7-4770K when compared in GPU centric games such as Battlefield 4, Tomb Raider, NFS etc.
While High end Graphics card
(HD7870 onwards, R9 270X onwards, GTX 670 onwards, GTX 760 onwards) will be paired better with CPU with higher threads count such as the i5-4670K and I7-4770K itself to avoid bottlenecks which really (really) ruins the game. CPU centric as ESV Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed IV really needs a suitable CPU-GPU pair up.

Armagg3don

Great micro…. micro!!!!!!!

David Tran

curious as to how well this little chip can feed a multi gpu setup.

Ahmed AL-Jaber

Its easy …. its because no software or game best utilized for pure 4 core. dual core is advance enough.

why not Intel make 4,3Ghz Pentium G ? maybe it can puch AMD X4 series for low budget user

Malloot

You guys should have tested this in some more cpu intensive games to really find out the difference, Starcraft, Battlefield 3-4 in a 64 player map are the stuff you want to see tested

Ivan Popov

You won’t see difference in Starcraft since it uses only two cores.

fridel maconee

im using this processor.really good for its price.paired together with sapphire hd 7790 with 6gb of ram.can play most modern games no problem 😀

ephemeris

Memory. In your review you utilized “8GB Donimator 2133MHz” memory. The Pentium is rated for 1333 mhz,or 1600mhz.
Considering an upgradable system,that you might want a new higher spec. processor later . Or by the same token better performing ram .

[ ] This type of RAM can be ‘clocked down’ ?
– so that with a new system . The better referenced (Higher Speed) RAM can be purchased. And added sequentially later . *

[ ] Is this a specificity of the CPU itself,the Motherboard,or the RAM itself . Being able to ‘Clock Down’.

*I noticed the similarity of the Memory test results. In that both the Pentium,and the I7 were actually doing about the SAME ? so with this:

[ ] Was the (I7) “8GB Donimator 2133MHz” memory ‘clocked down’ to to make the equivalent platform comparisons for this test ?

[ ] Why would the “8GB Donimator 2133MHz” be easier to ‘clock up’,using the I7 and not the Pentium ?

I’m basically doing the consideration of the upgradability for the 1150 where wouldn’t want to buy different memory types . While making them disposable at your first purchase of doing so.
Not a lot of reviews are saying exactly how they are making ‘settings’for their memories when the stats for most Intel Haswell processors from Intel only state 1300,or 1600hz specs.

Thanks for review.

tb293009

Your questions are very valid. I was always thinking the same thing but now i understand.

All ram is limited by is the cpu. Pentium can handle 1333mhz, so the BIOS tells the ram “Hey! You over there! The max this CPU can handle is 1333mhz, so you have to run at that so we can still operate together!” and it “downclocks” the ram.

Everything mentioned is part of clocking down. BIOS reports 1333mhz to cpu, cpu, bios and memory work in harmony.

Yes and no. Max frequency for ram on any non-E (extreme) processor is 1600mhz without overclocking. Don’t get yourself started on overclocking, the cloud just becomes fuzzier. The i7 was running at 1600mhz memory, however, memory speed USUALLY does not matter (maybe .5 fps different) unless you are rendering video.

The i7, simply put, has an unlocked multiplier. This means you can change multiple things, core speed, memory speed, and voltages. So essentially, the cpu can run with 2133mhz memory.

So, in conclusion, look for some good cl 8 ddr3 1600 mhz for i3, i5, i7. Look for good cl 8 1333 mhz ram for pentium.

Hope this helps,

tb293009

dude

for a couple of bucks more you should get the g3420…its faster than the g3220 and supports memory @ 1600mhz

marty1480

Looks really impressive. There I thought dual core was dead in modern gaming. I guess I was wrong. Excellent review and it is nice to see a site review products a little further down the range sheet.

JHG

You could use a Celeron and the results would still be the same. All the work is done by the GPU.

marty1480

Celerons are pretty good, but Pentium is a little better (bigger Cache, faster Speeds). But I agree with you regarding the GPU. But you could get a bottleneck regarding the CPU.

Ali D

A little left to be desired. How would this CPU fare with a GTX 750Ti, Radeon HD 7970 or equivalent or a better graphics card? Now a days 1080p is a standard resolution and with GTX670 it was more than enough. So I just want to know upto how much powerful gfx card we can pair this processor with?

JHG

any GPU will give the same result. The CPU only processes non-graphics data like player position etc which do not scale with GPU performance.

Alex_D

Not exactly, since this is a low end CPU, these medium end cards are going to get held a bit back since the CPU can’t handle all the GPU is trying to process. You would get more performance with a i3-4130+

JHG

I checked and it actually depends on the game title. Some are still CPU intensive, others, like Tomb Raider or Arma 3 are not at all. With these games using a Pentium G makes practically no difference to using even an i5:

Sorry JHG but I have to say that you are not correct. CPU does matter too. I did my own test with an unlocked CPU. Underclock and overclock. Everything else was the same in the system, I played with CPU frequency and the gap was huge between overclocked and underclocked benchmark results.

JHG

I’m talking about games, not benchmarks. All D was asking what is the fastest GPU you can pair with the G3220 and the answer is: any GPU. The G3220 is powerful enough to process all the needed CPU tasks of even the fastest GPU in games.

basroil

This thing isn’t much better than a Core2 Duo E8200 from 2007! You could have expected that performance if we were talking about a sub 30W processor, but no love there either. Doesn’t make much sense as a standalone processor, and it’s clear that modern (multithreaded) games will just destroy the chip.

Kristian Brødsgaard

Clock for clock, it’s not far behind an i5, and a lot of applications don’t NEED an i5 or i7. I’ve put one in a HTPC, and it’s actually overkill. System boots in 5-6 seconds, content never stutters, and it even does a bit of gaming on the integrated CPU.

All the while idling at 28W, and totally passively cooled. (No moving parts at all in the system, and it’s completely silent).

Does a C2D do that?

basroil

“Clock for clock, it’s not far behind an i5,”
About 10% slower clock for clock in Cinebench, bit smaller margin when considering gaming.

From experience, a 4 core i5 3570k is about 2.5-3x faster than a e8200 for blender (closer to 3.5x when talking about very long renders, shorter ones tend to have a large chunk of single threaded unoptimized activity). Comparing this chip to a E8200 would have been a better thing for the rendering part at least.

“All the while idling at 28W, and totally passively cooled. (No moving parts at all in the system, and it’s completely silent).

Does a C2D do that?”

Does one better, the power draw of an E8200 is just 28W at load!

( http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale_11.html#sect0 ). TDP for E8200 is about 65W vs 53W in the Pentium, though motherboard in the pentium should draw less power since both the GPU and memory are integrated. However, you should be able to easily have a passively cooled e8200, and even easier to use very low RPM fans (which are so quiet it is effectively silent)

Best of all, you can often get entire systems based on the e8200 for free, schools/libraries tend to let you take them (minus hdd) so they don’t need to pay for recycling.

Kristian Brødsgaard

Yay, lost my entire post because links open in the same window from comments. Brilliant coding!

10% difference isn’t what I’d consider a large difference, given the huge cost difference. It’s close enough.

As for relative speed between the E8200 and G3220, I have a hard time finding benchmarks comparing them, but an E8200 scores sub-2000 in Passmark, and a G3220 scores around 3200.
So the G3220 is about 60% faster, and applications that take advantage of the modern architecure (Core2Duo is getting quite old) will probably widen the gap, in some cases significantly.

Looking at power-draw, note that my numbers are at the plug. So subtract power supply inefficiencies and the rest of the system, and the CPU alone is far below 28W.

For the E8200 you can’t look at just the CPU, since it doesn’t have onboard memory controller and GPU, so it’s not really a fair comparison. In this review:http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2008/04/07/intel_core_2_duo_e8500_e8400_and_e8200/11
They get 150W idle from the E8200. Bit more than 28W. 😉
It’s obviously going to depend on what GPU you pair it with and so on, but the point is, you’ll have to add videocard and memory controller to the E8200 to make the comparison equal. The power draw of the CPU alone is worthless, since the CPU can’t do anything without the rest of the system, and looking at the platform as a whole, Haswell does MUCH better than Core 2 Duo ever did.

As for the last point: True, but you get stuck in an architecture that still uses DDR2, and is probably plain going to wear out at some point soon. Just buying DDR2 RAM for upgrades is expensive and a pain. If your budget is shoestring, it’s better than nothing, but I would never recommend recycling that old hardware if I had the budget to build something more modern and expandable.

basroil

“http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa…
They get 150W idle from the E8200. Bit more than 28W. 😉
It’s obviously going to depend on what GPU you pair it with and so on,”

They paired it with a 8800 Ultra that idles at about 120-130W! It’s hard to find specifics on that card (most test systems couldn’t handle it), but it shows (in full system at plug) as using 80-100W more than a 1950 XTX, and that card idles at ~30W.

Kristian Brødsgaard

Fair enough. You still need to add in SOME kind of video, and anything similar to a Haswell iGPU is going to draw maybe 10-15W idle. Memory controller, 5-10W. What does the rest of the system draw? Also, 10-20% efficiency lost at the PSU, so add that in. (You lose quite a bit when you are below 30W.)

(Also, please bear in mind the 1950XTX is far slower than even the iGPUs of today.)

Point being, the E8200 only draws 2.5W, yes – not saying that isn’t impressive (and lower than I’d have thought, didn’t recall Core 2’s being particularly power-sipping), but later CPUs add in a lot of stuff that brings power consumption up, but removes it from other parts of the system.
My 28W system draws anywhere from 20-22W (when PSU inefficiency is calculated), for the entire system.

Frankly, that’s an amazing piece of engineering by Intel.

TunaFish

I built a new workstation around the G3220 for daily work. My primary target was to keep power consumption down as low as possible since it will be on 24×7. It certainly didn’t disappoint in that aspect.

I am reading 21W at idle with a 128gb SSD and two 4TB HDDs spun down (using a fairly accurate energy meter). With both cores loaded 100%, I am getting 40-42W. Amazing piece of engineering by Intel indeed. I think the Corsair VS350 is also contributing a lot towards that efficiency.

Rahul

this cpu would be great with GTX 750 Ti.

dead

nice thanks i was looking one for it. they is few things i hope u can help me with . how is the G3220 against i3 processor? and should i buy a graphic card or not and motherboard which one. i am thinking mobo +gpu max of $ 150. if this is fine. which mobo+ gpu. in this range. or mobo only than till $120 n no gpu.

EzioAs

The results for Sleeping Dogs and Metro LL isn’t available. Also, power consumption is listed as Metro LL too